NATO HQ
Brussels

Press Conference

by Mr Jamie Shea, NATO Spokesman
and Colonel Konrad Freytag, SHAPE

Jamie Shea : Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
Welcome to our 3.00 p.m. daily update. And, as you see, today Colonel
Freytag is back with me here at the podium.

Let me begin very briefly by telling you that NATO, like you, is following
news reports coming out of Belgrade closely, but I would like to stress
that NATO has no comment to make at this point, and will not do so until
the North Atlantic Council has received an authoritative report on the
outcome of the talks that President Ahtisaari and Mr Chernomyrdin are
conducting with the Yugoslav authorities. For now, our air operations
continue and on that topic I would like to ask Colonel Freytag to give
you the update of operations over the last 24 hours, then we will go directly
into questions.

Yesterday, NATO flew more than 600 sorties against strategic and tactical
targets. Strategic targets in Yugoslavia, outside Kosovo, included radio
and TV broadcast and relay stations such as the one in Novi Sad, and an
airfield at Ponikve. Other strategic targets in Serbia, outside of Kosovo,
are shown here on this slide. General supply depots at Kuprije and Sveterzarevo,
a highway bridge at Velika Orazde, and the POL trans-loading facility
at Leskovac.

Air defence activity, including anti-aircraft artillery and radars was
relatively light. There was no Serb aircraft activity, but 8 surface to
air missiles or SAMs were launched at NATO aircraft. All NATO aircraft
returned safely.

Let me now ask you to turn your attention to our air operation in Kosovo
itself. Command control and communications targets in Kosovo were a radio
relay site and one command post. And, on the ground in Kosovo, heavy fighting
continued in the vicinity of Mount Pastrik. There was no apparent change
in the relative positions of Serb and UCK forces. In spite of heavy losses,
neither side seems able to prevail. Elsewhere in Kosovo the UCK is challenging
Serb units who are conducting combined arms operations. Combined arms
operations generically means the use of infantry, supported by tanks,
artillery and/or other forces. Serb targets struck in Kosovo included
tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery pieces, mortar positions,
gun pits, refuelling vehicles and a troop staging area.

These are significant numbers and they come on top of several days where
we have reported significant losses of Serb forces in Kosovo. The Serbs
have had to concentrate their forces to mount the offensive against the
UCK around Mount Pastrik. They have had some success, but they are paying
a high price for doing so. As they have come out of their camouflage to
conduct operations, so they have become exposed to our aircraft. That
provides us with what General Jertz two days ago called a target-rich
environment, and you have seen the impact in the cumulative damage that
has been sustained to Serb heavy forces in Kosovo over the past week.

On the ground, the UCK continued their attempts to establish effective
supply corridors. Serb forces continued border interdiction operations
including the cross border artillery shelling of some Albanian villages.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my portion of the briefing.
Thank you.

Jamie Shea : Colonel Freytag, thank you. We will now
take questions.

Matthew: Jamie, are there any plans for NATO officials
to travel to Belgrade for talks with Yugoslav officials? And, for the
Colonel, what's the state of readiness of the KFOR troops on the ground?
How soon could they go into Kosovo if there was an agreement with Belgrade.

Jamie Shea : Well, Matthew, there are no plans at
the present time. First of all, obviously, we will have to hear what President
Ahtisaari has to report when he gets back later this afternoon. And of
course we will have to ensure that the essential conditions of the international
community have been fully met and that there will be of course the implementation
of those conditions. So no more comments on that for the time of being.

Colonel Freytag : You know that 15-16,000 troops we
have in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, designed to be the
implementation force for the peace accord, they are ready to move whenever
they get the order.

Greg Palkot, Fox News: Jamie, I know it's hard for
you to comment on things that you don't exactly know.

Jamie Shea : Actually, Greg, it is extremely easy.

Greg: Associated Press has however come up with a translated
version of the document which the Serbian parliament approved and to look
at it it meets all of your specifications. It meets those critical, sacrosanct
five points. And I believe you have seen this translation. Are you at
least encouraged by this kind of report coming from Belgrade today?

Jamie Shea : Yes, I have seen the document that was
on the wires this afternoon, but I can't vouch for it and again I believe
that the wisest course of action for all concerned is to wait for President
Ahtisaari and Mr Chernomyrdin to come back. President Ahtisaari, as you
know, is going to brief the EU Summit and Strobe Talbott and other leaders
upon his return, and then of course we will be in a better position to
assess.

Greg: If this turns out to be true, would you be pleased?
Would NATO be satisfied?

Jamie Shea : Yes, but again, let's hear from President
Ahtisaari. He is the person who has been conducting the talks with Mr
Chernomyrdin. He is the most authoritative source, more authoritative
than a document on the wires, and therefore we are going to wait and listen
to what he has to say first and foremost.

Question: Jamie is there maybe today going to be any
NAC meeting about this document that has been approved by the Serbian
parliament? You said that you are waiting for Ahtisaari, but who is going
to inform the Ambassadors of NATO?

Jamie Shea : As you know, the Allies will be informed
very quickly. But I cannot tell you at this time exactly when. But it
will be soon, but no NAC meeting is scheduled at the moment for this afternoon.

Jake: Jamie, you or the Colonel, could you tell me
what preparations have been put in hand among the troops waiting to go
into Kosovo to carry out one of the first jobs which will be to disarm
the KLA?

Jamie Shea : Well, as you know, we have had the best
part of 12-13,000 troops in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
for several months under General Jackson, so they have really had a lot
of time to train for their mission. And they have been reinforced recently
with two battle groups, with a lot of heavy equipment: German and British
tanks, armoured personnel carriers and so on. So this is a force which
is well armed as well as fully integrated and has had a lot of time to
do training, including training as you know up on the border areas. So
this force, which is now going up, it is just under 16,000 at the moment,
is really fully ready for the mission, and I have no doubt that it will
be a very strong enabling force once it is given the order to deploy,
fully able to carry out the essential tasks while waiting of course for
the other forces to be deployed too. We very, very much welcome the decision
that was announced in Washington yesterday by the Prime Minister of the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to allow us to station up to 30,000
forces in his country as a beefed-up enabling force. This will go ahead
expeditiously so you can see NATO is fully ready for that mission.

Jake: Have you received any indications from the KLA
that they are, in the wake of an agreement such as this, prepared to be
disarmed by those forces?

Jamie Shea : Well, we will have to wait and see, won't
we?

Colonel Freytag : I could add one aspect. General
Jackson, who as a Major-General was in Bosnia one of our multinational
division commanders, and his troops did an excellent job in disarming
troops we did not like but they carried weapons.

Mark Laity, BBC: A couple of points. Any peace deal
you have said will have to be verified before NATO air operations end.
Can you give us some idea of how you can verify a withdrawal is beginning
when the Serb forces will obviously think that if they come out of the
trenches, they will be bombed immediately as we've just seen? So how can
you actually verify the beginning of a withdrawal in a way which will
satisfy their legitimate concern for safety? And also, on the question
of air operations, are air operations in this interim period going to
be modified in any way, targets changed, or are air operations going to
continue completely unaltered?

Jamie Shea : Mark, let me make it clear that we can
verify, very effectively a Yugoslav troop withdrawal from Kosovo. If we
can find a camouflaged tank in a ditch and destroy it, believe me we can
verify the departure of a whole army from Kosovo and specific arrangements
for the verification will of course will be worked out in due course.
For the time being, as I made clear in my introduction, the air operations
continue. A decision to stop those operations has to be made by the North
Atlantic Council together and for the time being the air operations are
ongoing.

David: Just on the question of KFOR going in, there
are plans now to build the force up to I think 50 - 51,000, but at what
number, what is the sort of minimum number that would constitute the first
unit going into Kosovo?

Jamie Shea : If I can David, though Colonel Freytag
will have something to say on this too, but we are really facing an abundance
of riches when it comes to this force. We have received in recent days,
offers from all over Europe to participate. We have had from NATO countries
such as the United States yesterday, from France, from the UK, too many
countries really to name, all allies, offers to increase the numbers that
they have already committed to the operation. Every day another Partner,
another NATO member, makes an announcement so this is moving ahead, this
is really going to be a force which will reflect the solidarity of the
entire Euro Atlantic area. We are not having trouble finding soldiers
and that's a very, very good sign.

As for the size of the initial deployment, that's something on which
the NATO military authorities will be making their recommendations. But
as I said before, we are in good shape, we already have a third of the
total force pre-deployed in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
fully ready for its mission. We have a number of other NATO assets in
the region, both on land and at sea, for example US Marines and, as you
know, the Force Generation Conference at SHAPE on Tuesday surpassed our
hopes in terms of providing the other forces and the capabilities, so
we may take a few more days to have everybody together but we're going
to be ready for this mission.

David: I thought in fact you said surpassing your hopes,
in fact aren't you about 3,000 troops short of your desired figure in
terms of commitments by Allies?

Jamie Shea : Put it this way, if you can get to within
3,000 on your first Force Generation Conference then, believe me, that's
not bad going by any standards.

Doug Hamilton, Reuters: Jamie, why did the Secretary
General and General Clarke cancel their trip to Aviano tomorrow with the
NAC? And Colonel Freytag, could you say if you have any information, signals,
intercepts, to indicate that Commanders in the field were aware of the
Ahtisaari/Chernomyrdin visit and its potential importance?

Jamie Shea : Doug, obviously given the fast moving
developments on the diplomatic front, clearly the Secretary General and
the Ambassadors believed it would be necessary for them to remain here
to be able to continue to evaluate the significance of events.

However, let me stress that NATO countries, the Secretary General, the
Ambassadors, want to express to the pilots their thanks and their support,
their solidarity for the very difficult and very professional mission
that those pilots have carried out over the last 72 days of Operation
Allied Force so I believe that it's better to talk about a trip postponed
than a trip cancelled.

Colonel Freytag : I assume you mean the field commanders
from Serbia?

Question: Were they aware of what did happen today?
Were they aware that this could come?

Colonel Freytag : That I cannot confirm. I only can
say that we have seen that two field commanders were ordered to go to
Belgrade but we don't know for what reason.

Karen: Jamie Shea, yesterday you said the international
force would move in as soon as the forces begin to withdraw. What is the
mechanism for that? Would NATO troops for example only move in to vacated
areas, demilitarised areas or would they take over barracks where Yugoslav
soldiers are already present or how is that supposed to work?

Jamie Shea : Karen, again I can't give you every detail
at this stage because that's something which the Council will be discussing
when we get to that time, when we get to that time but, as I've mentioned,
we have the forces, they're ready, they're in the area, they have their
deployment plans, all of this has been worked out in advance and therefore
I believe this operation will be conducted smoothly. But exactly the moment
of the deployment, that is a decision which will be taken by the North
Atlantic Council. I can't give you that yet.

Freddie Bonnart: Two points, one has been mentioned
before but let me ask one direct military question. You gave us, Konrad,
or your predecessor there, gave us the equipment losses of the Serb forces
in Kosovo and in fact in Yugoslavia generally. Is there an estimation
of the personnel losses? Of these 40,000 in Kosovo, how many are now expected
to have been reduced or reduced by? That's one question. The second one
is a more general one but it's also partly military. You say that one
third, Jamie, of the forces destined to go in are present and trained
and so on, but two thirds are not in fact and these two thirds that have
already been offered come from different national contingents and will
not have been trained for that particular purpose. How long does one expect,
if these talks are now successful and the move in, the political situation
is ready for a move, then how long will it be before the adequate force
will be available?

Colonel Freytag : We saw the reports that the Serbs
themselves had confirmed about 1,800 losses, but our estimate is much
higher, losses and injured people, far more than 10,000 and we see them
bringing in fresh forces in particular in the Mount Pastrik area and we
see them bring in forces with more modern equipment than before like T84
tanks, so the battle is not over there.

Jamie Shea : Freddie, as far as the question of the
availability of forces is concerned, I think again we are preparing quickly.
You remember that the original concept was for 28,000 and the troops that
were not already in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia were on
short notice standby in Alliance nations to move and those forces of course
are still part of the overall concept. The forces for example that President
Clinton announced yesterday, we know from the Pentagon briefing are coming
predominantly from Germany, so they are close by. We have now a number
of countries which are actively preparing the forces they are going to
contribute for the mission and we are in touch with neighbouring countries
to sort out transit arrangements. So believe me, this is being given the
priority that it deserves.

Roy Gutman, Newsday: In the published report of the
NATO plan, Serbian forces at border posts will be in small numbers. Leaving
aside the nature of the plan itself, is this an accurate position?

Jamie Shea : The position of the international community
is that initially in the first instance all those forces, Serb forces,
military, paramilitary, police, must withdraw. And again I am not going
to vouch for a document which is in the wires. Let us again wait and hear
from President Ahtisaari all the details when he comes back and I am not
going to comment further before then.

Colonel Freytag : I want to make one point clear.
The Serb forces are responsible for the mine laying so they will be responsible
for the mine taking out.